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Team Guide by DuffTime

This build has been archived and is for historical display only.

PLEASE NOTE: This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

An intro to jungling.

This guide is going to explain jungling as a concept, and provide champions and builds that are capable of fulfilling the function.

I'm not going to show you the paths to take or the times to gank or where you need to ward bla-bla-bla.

Why not? Because the simple fact is, there are a million routes to take, all of them have different functions and purposes, and all of them work for different reasons.

With that being said, you will benefit more from looking Youtube videos on how to jungle, rather than reading a post telling you how.

Jungling is a free-form style of play, and because of that, requires an active, aware player, who is quick on the draw with summoners in case someone comes to gank him and ruin his jungle, or he stumbles upon a gank and needs to capitalize on it. Because of this, you need to understand the game well before you can effectively jungle. It's a bit of an acquired taste, and not everyone likes it.

I for one, prefer to lane. And the reason is simple. I know I will beat most players in lane. I know if I have the champion to beat a player, I probably will, and to win a lane is part of winning the game.

Junglers, however, are also instrumental in winning a lane. A succesful gank and a kill immediately turns the tide in your favor, and puts their champion behind.

Let's take a look at the fundamentals of jungling.

As in all my guides...

I should mention.

Suggestions will be treated as suggestions, and I will consider a well put suggestion.

But, I really don't care if you think my way is, "Wrong"

Because, I've played enough games to know it doesn't work that way.

Should you down-vote, I won't lose any sleep over it. The guide is here for those who want to learn how -DuffTime- thinks jungling should be done and the builds -DuffTime- might use in the jungle.

Cheers, and again, enjoy the guide, the information and builds may be useful to you if you can understand them and execute them properly.

Duff, Wriggles, cmon man...

You wanted to see more Wriggle's lantern's? Cause you read somewhere it's one of the best jungling items? Or because you consider yourself a great jungler and you know how much it helps?

You are correct, it -is- one of the best jungling items. However, that's all it is, is a jungling item. It helps you ward, it helps you jungle faster, and that's it.

For the champions who need to jungle faster or perhaps it just fits the bill of what I had in mind anyway, you might notice, 3 of my junglers have it listed.

For the rest of them, there is a reason I don't have it listed. You might have noticed a few of my junglers get Sheen very early.

Sheen will help with both ganks (Lots) and your jungle (Depending on the jungler, lots) The wriggle's proc will move you slightly faster but the utility is limited to jungling. I don't like that.

Because of that, I have created ways that I believe to be superior, to get around wriggle's and still jungle quickly and effectively as well.

Not everyone will agree, but you can always build or jungle however you want. That's why this is my jungle guide, not yours =)

The fundamental elements... Of jungling. (Sry P.O.D.)

The fundamentals are really fairly simple as ideas, but really not very simple in practice. It's a lot to manage for a new player, which is why I recommend getting experience and understanding of the game before you try to do this.

-When jungling, you will need specific runes to do the job better. In order to effectively jungle, and be safe, you will need to have protective starting runes or mastery's that will keep you safe in the jungle. The builds listed accomplish that task, but you will need to follow the runes and mastery's for some of them.

-Not all junglers are the same. Some do it well, others don't do it very well at all.

-Know your jungler. Are you playing nunu? Great, go gank at level 3. Gank whenever you possibly can. It doesn't matter if you fall behind a little bit in levels. Gank like crazy. You're not a farmer, you're a ganker as nunu. Are you playing Yi? Farm like crazy. Only gank when you have red buff, and then go back to farming. In fact, during early phase, the other team shouldn't even know you exist unless you have red buff. In their minds, Yi, and red buff, should be synonymous until the end game comes. All of the junglers have a different style, and you need to know and understand the style and the function of having that champion in the jungle. Youtube will help with that.

-Jungling is free form. This means at time you will break the "Route" you have in mind to support a champion and protect your lane, or, gank an enemy and push a lane. You are an important role in the team, because when your team is strong, you make them stronger by suddenly appearing. When your team is weak, you support them by suddenly appearing, and push back the opponents.

-Jungling is team-reliant. If your top lane champion is a carry or a flimsy champion, or even just one who lacks damage in a 2v1, they often times can't hold the tower. You need team mates who are going to make a wise choice for their solo top lane if you are going to jungle. If they have to fight a strong lane like Malhpite/Zilean or Lux/Cho-Gath, they will not be able to defend the tower, and instead of you ganking and supporting bottom lane, you'll be busy baby-sitting top, and the effect of having a jungler will be minimal. Almost entirely asted if you lose the tower and dont get any succesful ganks on other lanes.

-Ganking should be done, even if you don't land a kill. For 1, it has a mental effect. They won't want to over extend to harass your team mate and push them out of lane. They won't over commit to attacking your towers. They might burst their summoner skills, which may be all your team mate needed to land a kill. Even if you can't kill them, if you can force them to act and do things you want them to, your gank was succesful.

-If you know the other champion has their summoners ready, sometimes it's better to gank slowly. Just run at them normally, and let them waste their summoners. Go away, and come back a second time shortly after for the kill. (I.E: don't trade summoners, make them use theirs, and you keep yours, unless using yours GUARANTEES a kill.)

-Be aware! People know you're tanking creeps and minions, and it is a common and popular tactic to kill the jungler! Counter jungling is proven effective!

-Practice, practice, practice. Jungling gets easier with time, and as you get better at it, you'll start to "Feel" the way you should be jungling. I don't read guides on routes or paths or watch how to videos. I make my own builds, mastery's, use my own skill ideas and order, etc. Because I know what I will need to jungle effectively, and what I will need to support my team and ideally land some kills.

Because of the nature of jungling...

The basic jungling information will be kept short.

If you want to learn how to jungle, like I said, watch a video. Each champion does it so differently that I can't effectively "summarize" how to jungle.

But, I will add notes here on certain champions so you can perhaps understand a bit better how I perceive them and their style.

Trundle:

Be sure to land one auto attack first, because your bite (Q) will cause you to attack immediately again and you get more damage.

You start out as a farmer/ganker, and turn into an off-tank later.

Gank when the opportunity presents itself, but make sure to keep killing the minions in the jungle as well. You want to finish your gear, Trundle scales very well with gear when you follow this build.

For information on how to Off-Tank, see my original guide in regards to Off-Tanking.

I have a guide listed specifically for Trundle on my profile as well, if you're interested.

Malphite:

Malphite is one of the hardest junglers, for one reason alone.

It's hard to balance ganks with farming on this champion.

You need to do both, but when to time these ganks and when to keep farming is a bit difficult to gauge at times.

You will need a basic level of farm, because you are going to tank, and you will need to gank often because you have a target-able slow, which is useful for ganks.

Amumu:

Same story as Malphite, except replace, "slow" with, "skill-shot."

I think you might want to gank even more often with Amumu, than you would with Malphite. Personal taste.

Eve:

*Evil grin

Honestly, you should be in their jungle almost as often as you're in your own jungle.

Try to wait in a brush if you can while they work on red or blue and time your smite to steal it. DONT WASTE YOUR SMITE!!!

Once you steal the buff, become aggressive and attack them, and hopefully land a kill. (BE CAREFUL!!! Their other players are going to come after you.)

Eve is great at what's known as, "Counter jungling" and a few other champions are great at this as well. If you can jungle your own buffs, and ruin their jungler's fun as well, you're doing your job.

Not to mention, Eve is a great ganker. She's difficult to master, but once you do, you may find she is a great choice to bring a different and interesting element of play to the game.

Shen:

Shen is one of the best, most commonly banned champions in the game at a higher level of play.

Shen is a decent ganker, but he's not one of the best gankers in the game. If you can get close enough to land your taunt, the enemy may be in trouble, but at low levels the taunt doesn't last very long. You should gank lanes in which your team possess CC's like a lane with a Taric, who will be able to more effectively ground an opponent, but who may need you to come CC them first. Farming early might be a bit of a priority, as you want to get lvl 6 fast, and you want to get Sunfire to help you farm more effectively and deal some damage that Shen lacks.

Up to you.

Right now, Shen and Zilean are banned in almost every game of top level of play.

Shen's ultimate should be used at the START of a fight in the early game laning phases, not at the end. Don't wait till your mate is almost dead to ult, use it early and go fight them 3v2 or 2v1.

Later in the game, your team can utilize a method known as "Split pushing" which is one of the most powerful tactics being used in today's play. Shen goes bottom or top lane and pushes, breaking towers, while 4 of your team members pressure (Or defend) mid lane. When Shen notices one of them is coming, he simply backs off. As soon as your team sees that one player on the other team is missing, you push mid, and then Shen will ult to middle to make the fight a 5v4. It's incredibly frustrating, and if you don't have champions who can effectively counter a split push, there's often times not much you can do about it.

Olaf:

Olaf is considered by many to be one of the best junglers.

He's very capable. If you level axe first, you can angle it just so, so that when you throw it, you don't have to move to pick it up. If you attack the minion camps and drag them, you can throw the axe to hit them all, and not have to run to pick it up, making clearing the camps a breeze.

This method is SO MUCH faster than leveling vicious strikes, that you finish the camps WITH MORE HP than you would have had with the life steal. Don't use Reckless Swing... You don't want to be even lower HP than you normally would have been. That's just not wise.

Also, then you can level your axe, which is better for ganks and deals much more damage.

Olaf -is- an excellent ganker. The problem? He -NEEDS- his team to understand. They can't be pushed past the tower. If bot lane is even pushed halfway, it makes it hard. If they are, honestly, you can't gank. If the lanes are all pushed incredibly far, you might consider going and killing their jungler. It may be the only viable option left, and a full HP Olaf will kill 90% of the other junglers in the early game with ease.

You should keep in mind, Olaf is considered an early game champion.

But, with a build like the one I've listed, he is good all game. He's not going to be like Jarvan late, but he's better than Jarvan early. Mid game is your time to shine, and really devastate the other team. If you do this, you've succeeded as Olaf.

If you don't, well, you're gonna be at a disadvantage because he's not an amazing late game champion once you reach a more competitive level of play.

The jungle, is to keep you up levels. Nunu is a farm independant champion, so go jungle to gain levels, and then start ganking again. You can be 1-2 levels behind the rest of your team, and that is ok as long as you're ganking constantly and making the other team's life hell.

WW:

Warwick is a very very safe jungler.

A tip, if you ever see a Warwick without smite, and you don't see him in lane, he probably started on the other team's Double Golems.

If you can't make it to their Golems in time to kill him, what you CAN do is go steal their blue buff >=) That will be a pretty hard hit to their Warwick, just make sure he doesn't steal yours back once he becomes strong enough. (I.E. do yours when the time presents itself, or give it to a team mate, ideally an AP caster mid or perhaps a GP or a Nidalee top.)

When you jungle with Warwick, I recommend taking smite. It's just sort of necessary. You don't want the other team to be able to flash in and steal Dragon's or Baron's.

I'm not going to write much more about WW, but, play style for this build is spamming Q and maximizing survivability on WW, while still getting the most out of your ult and being able to auto attack. I think it's one of the best WW builds out there.

Edit: WW

Working on new start gear for WW, will edit when new start is ready.

For now, the tried and true, safe, albeit boring, cloth armor 5 HP.

Udyr:

I have only ever played Udyr in 3v3.

The guide is designed for 3v3 play, and to be fair, I don't -always- jungle.

Yes, phoenix is faster for jungling than tiger. You know what it's not faster for? It's not faster for being the skill that made it into DuffTime's guide. You know why? Cause I prefer the MASSIVE damage proc from Tiger strike when it comes time to pvp, in combination with Trinity.

It's so much damage in fact, that I don't ever -have- to build any more. I build madred's later because of the great synergy with the attack speed, and the great sustained damage output without needing any other items. If you choose, it can be replaced with Last Whisper, totally up to you and both are viable in different situations. (Or you can build trinity and fully tank. if that's what you need to do.)

Not to mention, tiger strike attack speed buff with Wriggle's tears minions to bits. Before you get wriggles, Phoe is faster, once you get wriggles, big HP targets die much much faster to Tiger, AKA more dragons and red buffs for you.

Edit: CAREFUL WHEN PICKING Udyr.

*Note for playing Udyr...

Udyr is a very team-comp reliant champ. I have a buddy and we roll Urgot/Karthus/Udyr and absolutely STEAMROLL almost any team.

Yet, when we alter that champ line up, what generally ends up happening is Udyr just runs in and gets focused and dies.

You have to keep in mind, if you're going to pick Udyr, you need a very forward heavy team. You need 3 champs who just go-man-go and really plunge into their enemies. Other wise, you will plunge in (You have literally no other option) and you will just die.

Get red buff, gank for a while. Hopefully land a kill, Yi with red buff is devastating.

And then? Farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm ect...

I SHOULD NOTE: Yi is one of the fastest, if not -the- fastest jungler in League of Legends. This is just even more reason to farm like crazy.

Edit: Yi

Before you spam away with all the hate in the world about rushing a GA, just try it =p

It's absolutely amazing.

The amount of damage that Yi has built into himself is enough, and getting a GA turns your mid game into a giant domination fest. It's just devastating. Realistically, because of this build, Yi is also one of my favorite junglers.

Also, whenever you choose to after your core gear is complete, you can sell wriggle's for a Bloodthirster, Mobility boots for Merc treads, and Cloak and Dagger for Phantom Dancer.

So in summary...

If you have any questions ask away, I will be happy to answer your questions.

If you need a guide on a specific champion, Youtube is a great source of information, and there are good guides listed by top players on there.

I hope the builds and the quick run through helped, and I hope you're one step closer to being on your way into the jungle.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!